This blog on Texas education contains posts on accountability, testing, college readiness, dropouts, bilingual education, immigration, school finance, race, class, and gender issues with additional focus at the national level.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will visit San Antonio tonight and Friday to discuss college affordability and the role Hispanic students could play in boosting college completion rates, officials said.

After speaking in Austin today, Duncan will travel to San Antonio for a “college affordability and Hispanic community town hall” tonight with Mayor Julián Castro. The meeting will be at 6:10 p.m. at Café College, 131 El Paso St., a U.S. Department of Education news release states.

Duncan will discuss “the importance of college and the key role that Latinos play to help the nation meet the president's goal to lead the world in college completion by 2020,” according to the release.

The invitation-only event is mostly for students and parents and is already full, but NOWCastSA will webcast the event live, and Café College will open a classroom for 120 people to view the webcast at the site, said Eyra Perez, executive director of the San Antonio Education Partnership.

At 9 a.m. Friday, Duncan will speak at the White House Hispanic Community Action Summit at Fox Tech High School, 637 N. Main Ave.

At the day-long summit, a long list of administration officials and about 300 community members will discuss education, job creation, health care and immigration, according to an itinerary released by the White House.